


Dragon's Pact

by FireEye



Category: Final Fantasy IV
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 16:07:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19429438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireEye/pseuds/FireEye
Summary: Lunarians have long memories.





	Dragon's Pact

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flonnebonne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flonnebonne/gifts).



The air was thin on the lunar surface, like trying to breathe on the highest mountain, but strange tasting and achingly dry. There was no water, there were no trees, there was no breath of the wind... the very land was deathly still.

In the underground canals cutting beneath the moon’s crust, it was scarcely more tolerable, and still nothing alike the lush planet they’d left behind.

The halls of the crystalline palace were vast, alien, and lonesome. Here was a sign of life. A sign of hope. It was beyond in scope any terrestrial city any of them had ever known – the deepest reaches of its inner labyrinthine complexities could easily have taken months, years, or even a lifetime to explore. Yet its hollow halls were little but an echo of the civilization it had once held.

This was the heart of the Lunarian people, beating out of time as it awaited their awakening.

Their spirits remained. Rydia could sense them, clustered and curious, at the periphery of her perception. They had come to see the strangers in their midst, and to whisper softly of prophecies fulfilled.

Though time was short, FuSoYa had bid them rest. And so, in chambers fit for a royalty descended from the stars, they were granted a short respite from their ordeal. Lost otherworlders as they were, with a guiding star at last.

Cecil sat hunched forward, with his hands folded in his lap. The world had weighed heavily on him, and heavier still was the weight of the moon. Rosa slept peacefully beside him.

Edge, who had insisted that he would stay awake all night to stand guard if no one else were willing, for FuSoYa and his people were suspicious and not to be trusted, had fallen asleep on his feet.

Rydia, meanwhile, was wide awake, and buoyant with curiosity. The minds and spirits of the Lunarians were stirring all around them, and something in this place called to her, resonating deep down inside, singing with a voice lyrical and anciently young.

She slipped out into the hall.

FuSoYa had taken his leave to prepare for the journey. She wondered idly where he might have gone, and she might have been able to find him, if she’d wanted to, but finding him was a distant, ephemeral thought.

Instead, she wandered the rabbit’s warren of passageways that made up the crystal palace. Spirits surged and ebbed and faded as she passed, and the call grew never closer nor more distant the further she wandered.

She passed beneath a translucent ceiling to the sky, suspended above a courtyard full of pebbles and crystalline rocks, not unlike the dry gardens of Eblan. The crystals danced with the light of the blue planet below.

Her wandering brought her to a great hall, greater still in that it was full of mirrors. The images they reflected shifted and changed out of the corner of her eye, but no matter how quickly or slowly she turned, she could only catch but a fleeting glimpse of what lurked beneath the surface.

And through the door beyond, pale faded color on every inch of the vast chamber, spilling over into legend. Monsters and demons. Humans and those who must have been Lunarians. An achingly familiar sky, hung with only a single silver moon.

Rydia’s gaze was drawn along the depiction on the nearest wall. A figure in the center looked much like Cecil. Although clearly not the same man, his hair shone silver and his cape billowed heroically in a frozen wind. A crystal shard shone brightly in his hand.

A hand fell on her shoulder, and Rydia started. Looking up, she found Cecil staring at the mural. Entranced, she hadn’t heard him following her, but Rydia reached for his hand, and he glanced down at her. She made the effort to smile, perhaps not as brightly as she would have wanted; he squeezed her shoulder in return, but his own expression was drawn.

“What do you think it means?” she asked. Her words felt heavy, like none had been spoken here.

His lips thinned as his gaze was drawn back to the painting, and Cecil shook his head. He didn’t know, either.

“Darkness, and light, exist within the hearts of all.”

FuSoYa’s voice echoed a moment before she realized he had joined them. He smiled, not unkindly.

“They ebb and they flow. And when the flood is high, that is when heroes are born.”

Cecil watched him walk off again, then exchanged with Rydia a curious look. His hand slid off her shoulder, and he started to follow FuSoYa, but Rydia soon fell behind.

A familiar shape caught her eye – a serpentine head and neck, joined to a stocky body framed by wings that blocked out the sun, and balanced by a whip-like tail. The dragon’s claws were outstretched, fire pouring from its maw.

“ _Bahamut_.”

FuSoYa was standing at her shoulder again. The name he intoned sounded familiar, like ash upon her tongue.

“In an age of overflowing darkness, a great wizard and master of the eight circles devised a pact with the King of Dragons. It bound them together in fate, and so it was that Summoners came to be among the children of the Blue Planet.”

Cecil had slowed to a stop, and, shoulders squared, was staring at another panel. Rydia sidled up beside him, and gave a little gasp, shrinking into him. His arm slid around her shoulders.

It was death.

Summoned Beasts and Summoners both, along with knights and mages under unfamiliar banners, facing off against a smaller faction of Lunarians. A clash of peoples, warring and dying.

FuSoYa _hmmed_ deeply. His ancient brow pinched.

“Long is our history. Lunarians were not all peaceable, content to dream an eternity of dreams, and many thought as Zemus did. In the last great conflict between our peoples, it was the Summoners who arose with a strength that rivaled our own.”

Cecil stared at FuSoYa. Rydia looked up at him.

“Golbez... had the Summoners destroyed,” he admitted thickly. “He used me to do it.”

FuSoYa breathed deeply in a pause that might have been surprise, but otherwise appeared unfazed. “Truly?”

Cecil swallowed. His arm tightened against her. “All but one. Rydia is the last.”

FuSoYa’s heavy gaze fell upon her, and his thick eyebrows raised. Rydia pressed closer against Cecil, and reached for his arm. Her voice was small.

“We’re not enemies, are we?”

Cecil’s answer was swift and intuitive, if a bit flat. “Of course not.”

“No, child,” FuSoYa assured her. “A grave ill has befallen your people.”

He turned again, leading them from the chamber. He continued speaking, almost to himself. “Zemus must still remember the power that thwarted him.”

The reflections in the mirrored hall danced more energetically. Still tucked under Cecil’s arm, Rydia ignored them, even if one shadow in particular happened to look like a dragon’s wing.

“We sealed away the Dragon King, for our protection,” FuSoYa was murmuring. “Perhaps it would be wise to call upon him, once more.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, I think I remember you from the LJ Final Fantasy circles. Hi! :D _More importantly_ , I do hope you enjoy this thing. :)


End file.
